


Calibration

by late40nights



Series: Whitelist [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Android Hank, Feelings Realization, M/M, Mentions of Death, Not Beta Read, Slow Burn, additional content warnings for chapters can be found in the notes, descriptions of violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-05-29 07:04:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15067763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/late40nights/pseuds/late40nights
Summary: The only hard evidence they're supplied with is a useless CCTV feed, of which about two minutes is highlighted and clipped for easy access. A white male, medium build, indeterminate age, indeterminate features, walking into the café with his head turned downwards, away from the camera. He walks from the front to the bathroom, closes the door, and a few moments later emerges and leaves.A flash. Static. That, Hank knows, is footage of the explosion.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. Okay.
> 
> I really wasn't planning on continuing with this so soon. Take a break, I said. You'll need time to brainstorm, I said. As it turns out, these characters have really drawn out a lot of ideas with me. Planning this second instalment took me four days flat. Now that I know definitively where I want this all to go I figure there's no point in delaying the story, so here is our first chapter. It's brief, but more is on the way. This is merely a set-up for what's to come.
> 
> If, somehow, new readers have found their way here, hello! I implore you, however, to read the first part of this series before continuing. This will very likely make little to no sense without that buildup.
> 
> Content warnings include descriptions of an explosion and mentions of death.
> 
> See you later!

Hank finds that he listens much, much more, now. Even when he doesn’t necessarily mean to.

There are footsteps. Conversation. The sound of rain on glass. Somewhere, distantly, a phone rings out, praying for an answer. Connor’s voice carries, muffled and dim, through the station. Always impossibly easy to pick out of a crowd. Unique in a slow and delicate way.

He can hear all of these little, mundane things from inside that infamous glass-box office. The box passed down from Fowler to Mercado, that will be passed down many, many times with Hank around to see it all.

It’s still surreal to be back at the precinct after saying goodbye with so much finality. Surreal, sure. weighty, yes. But invigorating in a very familiar and primal way. It reminds Hank of his good days here, of his golden era, of his task force, of that feeling of success and admiration. The kind of reminder that makes Hank want to fight for it all back, now that his bones don’t ache under the weight of his own body.

But there’s always some asshole in his way. Now is certainly no different.

“Lieutenant, I hesitate to put you on this case,” Captain Mercado states, tone low, authoritative. “It couldn’t possibly get more personal. Your _name_ is in the file. Multiple times, I might add.”

“You say that like I don’t know.” Hank responds. He’s sitting in that uncomfortable chair across from the Captain, arms crossed, brow set low. He’s fuming.

Mercado closes his eyes, leans back, lets a deep breath out of his nose.

“I already had this conversation with Connor _months_ ago. He convinced me to say yes. But you know what? He couldn’t do it. He pulled out. We didn’t see him here for weeks.”

Those words bother him deeply. Hank had been _dying,_ after all. Connor had backed out because he was busy _mourning him._

“Don’t you fucking make that comparison, that was _different_.” Hank snaps. Vehemently defensive.

“I know, I know,” A pause. There's a shift in the air. Mercado is backing off, if only by a single step. “But you have to understand where I’m coming from with this, Lieutenant.”

Hank stands, pushing his chair back against the tile. It squeaks bitterly. He knows, he gets it, he _does_ understand why Mercado wouldn’t want this to be his responsibility. But, after all, this guy doesn’t even know him. Has no idea who he is, how he operates, what _personal_ truly means in this situation.

Hank also knows that he needs this. That he _needs_ to get his hands on this case. That his drive to solve this puzzle is much more intense than anyone else’s could possibly be. It has changed his own life in every conceivable way. _He needs this._

“Listen, _Captain,_ I don’t give a shit what you think is too personal or not,” He spits out. “If you want this case _solved_ , if you wanna put these assholes away before they get their hands on more C4, you’re gonna put Conner and I on it. End of story.”

There’s a venom in his tone, low and vaguely threatening. Probably not the best approach, but he hardly cares anymore. He’s just so angry.

In the face of those words, Captain Mercado puts his hand up. A command of some sort for silence. Hank will let him have this, for a moment. Let him pretend he has some authority.

There’s a heavy pause. Hank can almost see the gears turning behind the Captain’s forehead.

“I’m willing to give you access to the files we have right now. I’ll even let you look over the evidence. _But,_ ” He spaces out his words for dramatic effect. “If you two can’t find something fast I’m moving you to another case. We can’t afford your personal connections bogging down this investigation any further. We don’t have a lot on it as it is.”

Hank wants to be really, really angry about that. About the insinuation that he’d allow anything to get in the way of progress. But he doesn’t let himself get any more worked up, because he just got what he wants. The files. All the important shit that he and Connor will surely be able to pick apart in synchronicity, much like they had every case that had come their way since the revolution.

He doesn’t even register the threat of time, because he’s confident in what they do. Maybe even more-so, now.

“I’ll send the passwords to your terminals. I recommend you get started,” Mercado sits up straight, rolls his chair closer to his desk. “Close the door on your way out. And tell Connor I said good morning.”

Hank only does one of those two things.

 

* * *

 

“Jesus, he wasn’t kidding. There’s _nothing_ in here.” Hank mutters, scanning through the documents page by page. Not that there are many of them.

“The information surrounding the case is lacking, yes.” Connor responds from his own desk, looking up from his screen to where Hank sits.

It’s essentially just a list of property damage and casualties. Him included, though he doesn’t linger on his own section of the report. It makes him feel vaguely ill in his core, still, to think too hard about it. The Anti-Android component and the possible motives, even, are all just conjecture.

The only hard evidence they're supplied with is a useless CCTV feed, of which about two minutes is highlighted and clipped for easy access. A white male, medium build, indeterminate age, indeterminate features, walking into the café with his head turned downwards, away from the camera. He walks from the front to the bathroom, closes the door, and a few moments later emerges and leaves.

A flash. Static. That, Hank knows, is footage of the explosion.

He also sees himself. Watches as he ponders over a wall covered in bags of ground coffee. Watches as the man in black scoots himself between his own back and the counter to get to the bathroom.

He watches as his own outline just leaves the frame before that sickening white-hot burst of light. It makes something in his chest twist, but he buries it. Pretends it doesn’t make him feel sick to watch the last moments of his waking human life on repeat.

It _can’t_ make him sick, not if he wants justice. More for the rest of the patrons and employees than himself. He figures a lot of people would consider him lucky to be here, after all.

“And we got nothing on this guy? No ID? No witness descriptions?” He asks, prying his attention away from the clip. He swipes it from his screen with a thick sense of relief.

Connor shakes his head, leaning back in his desk chair. He looks attentive but deflated all the same. It’s his _stumped_ expression.

“Nothing. No leads, no name. Additionally, no witnesses from outside of the café have come forward.”

Okay. Maybe Hank had been overconfident when he demanded they get this case. When he’d told the Captain, to his face, that he and Connor were his only option.

Maybe that was a bit of a pride issue.

“ _Shit._ ” He says, simply. “Shit, Connor, fuck. Shit.”

“Poetry in motion, Lieutenant.” Connor says, back to fiddling with his terminal. Hank can see through the double-sided screen that he’s looking at the crime scene photographs. Charred wood. Shards of brick. Soot spread across a sidewalk.

He sees a flash of red and looks away. For his own sake.

 

* * *

 

“What do _you_ think, Connor?” Hank asks. His car rumbles beneath his hands, planted at ten and two on the steering wheel. The sun is warm and thick like honey across the hood.

“About what?” He responds. The gray of Connor’s shirt soaks up the afternoon.

“About what the hell is going on in this fucked-up city.” Hank clarifies, fingers tightening on the wheel. The leather squeaks under his palms.

“I think the Anti-Android movement is rising at an alarming rate with increasing degrees of violence.” A very simple, factual response. Not exactly satisfying for Hank’s curiosities.

“Okay, yeah. But how does that make you _feel?_ ”

There’s a stutter in the flow of conversation. Hank enjoys pushing Connor like this, prodding him, peeling back the layers of his exterior. Sometimes, still, he needs help bringing his emotions to the surface. Like shaking out your bedsheets to find your phone.

“…It makes me angry. Because,” He stops, lips parted, brow low.  “Because I don’t understand why they had to do this. Those people were innocent. Most weren’t even Androids.”

Hank waits, patiently, to see if Connor will offer anything else. He doesn’t.

“That’s it?” He prods.

Connor is silent for a moment. Upon Hank flicking his eyes over, he notices that Connor’s hands are wrung tightly together on his lap. The definition for that Connor-ism is anxiety. Sometimes worry.

“Yes. For now.”

A weird response. But Hank doesn't think it necessary to pry any further, and Connor typically tells him everything eventually. Instead, he nods, relaxes back into his seat, loosens his grip on the wheel. Flicks on his turn signal at an intersection, feels the warm slip of the leather under his hands as his car banks around the curb. There’s something so cathartic about driving home after work, watching the afternoon sun dance across the pavement. His car _has_ seen better days, sure, putters a bit rougher than it maybe should, has a bit of a shake to it that he can feel up through his feet.

But it’s so achingly familiar he wouldn’t trade it for anything else. Certainly not one of those automated, driverless, pitiful parodies of a _real_ car. He thinks, often, that it’s sad how many people will never know how this feels.

“I also think we have direct footage of the perpetrator,” Connor offers. His voice is decidedly brighter than it had been just previously. “That gives us an idea of his body type _and_ body language for profiling purposes.”

Hank glances over at the passenger seat. The twitch upward of his eyebrows is his signal for Connor to continue.

He knows very well what that means and does.

“ _And,_ Lieutenant, we’ve fried bigger fish with smaller pans.”

Hank laughs, short and quiet. Sometimes, even to this day, the things Connor says can still draw surprise from him.

“I don’t think that’s a real turn of phrase, Connor.”

Connor hums, eyes watching something indeterminate out the windshield. He tilts his head just slightly.

“I thought it was a valiant effort.” He says, and he is smiling.

They’re _both_ smiling.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a few days longer than I expected. I hope it's length, which is plenty, makes up for that. This is likely the longest chapter that I've written for this story, and I hope it lives up to the wait.
> 
> Chapter warnings include suicidal ideation, talking about death/murder and descriptions of an explosion.
> 
> See you later!

“You know, You could be doing that much more efficiently.”

The _that_ that Connor refers to is spread across thirty or more tabs open on Hank’s terminal.

They’re a little past desperate. Desperate enough, as it is, to try scouring the internet for any tips or leads that they can get a grip on. So far fruitless, like shopping for bananas in the Arctic. Of course, there are _plenty_ of Anti-Android organizations out there with web pages. There are forums, blogs and many other things that only go so far as to post general rantings or organize protests that no one cares about enough to oppose. Nothing that can point to an actual act of terror. Nothing that can lead them anywhere.

It’s incredibly disheartening that they’ve stooped this low. That scans of criminal databases brought no matches for their unidentified perp. That there aren’t any previous offenders that meet the MO.

Frustrating, that’s what it is.

“You should be able to access those same web pages internally. I believe I’ve heard it described as being over one hundred times the speed of manual browsing.”

“Sounds fast.” Hank responds, still distracted. He’s halfway through an article about the threat of robots on human mortality. Ironic.

“Very.”

A pause. Hank is skimming, now, picking out only keywords.

“ _Hank_.”

He pushes back from the terminal, wheels of his chair scooting back.

“ _Okay,_ okay, I got the message,” He plants his hands, palms down, on the surface of his desk. “What now?”

Connor actually looks a little perplexed by this, mixing with the pre-existing smugness of getting what he wants.

“A good start would be to think.” He says, stating it like it’s a solid and undeniable truth.

If Connor actually had a grip on reality, Hank figures, he would know that telling him to think is a pretty poor excuse for instructions. However, he also remembers trying to figure out how to enter Stasis (which feels like a lifetime ago) and how, really, that was all he had done. Thought about it.

After all, everything he needs to know how to do is already there, somewhere inside of him. It’s just a matter of bringing it forward, picking it out, bending it to do what he wants. He nods, slowly, subconsciously, as he mulls all of this over.

Relenting, he decides to give it a shot. In all honesty, he’s sick of going page by page through all these pulpy, nonsense ramblings and badly written essays. Hank leans back in his desk chair, which tilts with his body a little more than it likely should, and does as Connor had said to. He thinks.

It’s all radio silence for a few moments. Nothing happens. He focuses on what he wants to do, on what he’s looking for, on accessing the internet, on his previous searches that are still open on his terminal. Faintly, he can hear Connor swivel, returning to his own work.

Sudden isn’t quite strong enough to describe the following intrusion on his senses when all his poking and prodding pays off.

Information flashes back and forth like someone flicking a light switch. It’s fast. Faster than fast. Each burst of text, group of images, message log, and PDF file only takes an instant. Yet, somehow, he understands it all without failure, without a sense of being overwhelmed. A constant barrage of thought that he processes with just as much efficiency and intensity.

Some of the stuff he’s already seen on his own. A lot of it, however, is brand new. Nothing concrete that he needs, yet, but already this system of research is a shit load more promising than trying to click around badly constructed websites without a clue on what he’s looking for.

The oddest part is that everything is still there, sensation wise. He can still see the DPD around him, can hear the bustle of the office, can feel where his hands are planted firmly on his desktop. At the same time, within himself, he can _see_ this stream of information passing by. Is picking out things for consideration and tossing them back when they don’t hold anything promising.

Hank has no idea how long he stays there, frozen, before it happens.

A series of images, here one millisecond and gone the next, that registers with him as important. They fly by before he can realize their value.

He has to wrestle with himself a little, go back, slow down, _stop getting anything more,_ go the hell _back_ to what’d he’d seen go by so damn _fast_.

Finally, he is able to settle on what he wants. It looks like it could be nothing at first, but it only takes him seconds to realize, fully, what he’s looking at.

It’s the outside of the Café. Sort of. More so it looks like a maw, open, gaping, black. Charred to bits, falling apart. Twisted wood, metal supports, blown outwards, remind him of teeth. It is evil, in every sense of the word. The sidewalk, blocked off by police barricades, is littered with brick. Shards, black as soot. On the street itself is the remnants of the business sign. Once upon a time, it had read _The Steam Room_. The only identifiable letter is the capital R. An O, twisted out of shape, lays a few feet to the right.

The picture is taken early enough that there are still cops in the area. A car is pulled in front, partly obscuring the storefront itself. Another is pulled around the corner. Red and Blue are reflected up and into the lens by rain puddles on the ash fault. The series of firetrucks that had most certainly been there, however, are gone.

At the point where this image was taken, Hank would have been in emergency. Hooked up to machines, confused, stuck in the dark. Sounds popping in and out. Mostly out. Surrounded by people trying so hard to save the rest of him, whatever _had_ been left. Connor, mercifully, never really told him how bad he’d actually looked.

The next picture is days later. There’s a tarp tacked up, trying to hide the open wound of wreckage, which Hank can almost hear flapping in the wind. Snappy and loud. The brick has been swept, collected, sorted through. Nothing found, tossed away. The sidewalk is still blocked off, now with wooden beams. There are remnants of soot stains on the ground, dark, smeared. The sun is out in this instead of the rain, glints off forgotten broken glass at the bottom left corner.

Hank has to stop for a solid few seconds. It’s tougher than it should be. Shakes him a little more than he wants it to. He feels that vice in his chest tighten, twist, pull.

Another thing for him to stick on the pile of issues he’ll fight to ignore. He recognizes it, logs the fear and panic as being _there,_ and promptly puts it somewhere in the back of his mind where it won’t intrude. How _he_ feels is not important. The investigation is.

He goes back to work.

The subsequent three images are much the same. They show the location, always viewed from the corner across the street, in chronological states of disrepair. The last picture is of an empty lot.

Hank has to tear himself away from them. They don’t really mean anything at this point. Anyone could’ve stood on that corner and taken these, uploaded them for the morbid curiosity of others.

That changes, though, because he starts poking around the website he’d found them on. It proudly titles itself _REPROBATE_ in thick, black lettering. There’s a subsection specifically for Anti-Android crimes and activities. _REPROBATE_ ’s number one post in this subsection are these pictures. Titled nothing. Caption; _My Efforts From Last Tuesday. Enjoy!_

Hank doesn’t know how he sends this website and its information to his terminal besides having the intention to. When it pulls itself up, appearing across the screen in front of him rather than his own head, though, he doesn’t complain. He is far too busy to care what he’s capable of or how.

“Connor,” Hank says. The urgency in his voice is loud and clear. “Over here. Now.”

There is no hesitation. He’s there in a heartbeat.

 

* * *

 

They don’t _need_ physical copies, per-say. So easily these images could be kept in their spots on Hank’s terminal.

But he _likes_ them. Likes splaying them out, one by one, across his desktop. Individual little pieces to consider, to pick up, to put down, to reorder. It makes them real, somehow. Much more so than their digital predecessors.

“They’re taken at completely different times,” Connor mumbles over his shoulder, talking himself through it all. “One after another. The quality of the images highly suggests that they were also taken by the same camera.”

“He’s returning to the scene to admire it. Typical of these types. Get satisfaction out of seeing their own dirty work.”

Hank plucks one up off the desk, tilts it, distracts himself with the charred remains of _The Steam Room._

“ _And,_ if he’s returned this many times, it’s not out of the question to assume he will potentially return again.” Connor states, matter-of-factly.

“Fucking _exactly,”_ He reaches across the desk, sweeps the photographs into a pile, hands them to Connor. “We’re taking these to Mercado. Want to see the look on that mother-fuckers face.”

“Don’t be juvenile. He’s not _that_ bad,” Connor taps the pictures against the desktop, ensuring they’re orderly and straight. “I’d like you to keep in mind that he’s the same mother-fucker that got you your job back.”

“Thin ice, Connor.”

“You say that, but I’m led to believe that the ice is, in fact, quite thick.”

“And how do you know that?” Hank asks, standing from his chair. The wheels squeak unhappily against the floor.

“Trial and error,” Connor steps back, makes space around him. “Shall we?”

 

* * *

 

The list of tasks they get from Mercado is long enough to give Hank a headache. Well, the suggestion of a headache.

Full copies of the images for analysis. Orders for the tech department to scour through _REPROBATE_ and see if the post is trackable. A stakeout car parked outside the remains of _The Steam Room_ to check licence plates and look for suspicious characters.

It all culminates to a feeling of excitement, satisfaction, apprehension and two hours of copious paperwork filing.

When they finally get out of there, Hank can’t say he isn’t a bit grateful. He’s really sick of looking over those photographs. He feels like if he has to type one more sentence into another report he’ll roll over and die. Of course, he’s not tired. No matter how long he’s been staring into his terminal, he can’t be tired. But he’s _tired._ That unique breed of mental exhaustion he can still manage, machine or not. He’s _tired_ of thinking and dwelling on it. Of looking at charred wood. The list of casualties. _REPROBATE._

It’s gotten to a point where he physically can’t make himself do it anymore. He has to go home. Thankfully, they get everything done anyway. Connor has always been a bona fide expert at picking up the slack that Hank leaves behind and that certainly hasn’t changed. If anything, he seems quicker to do the work that Hank doesn’t. Pushing himself twice as hard to make sure that, at the end of the day, every new thing that Hank thinks of that they have to do is already completed in full.

That being said, it’s well past dark outside by the time they leave the precinct.

His hands, as always, feel good on the steering wheel. Cemented, solid, grounded, sure. A place where he belongs and that he controls.

No matter the bullshit that happens at work, which is often _quite_ the bullshit, he still gets to sit in his car and drive it where he wants to. Before it would be the bar. Now it’s home, which is less satisfying, even after so many years trying to cut down. Thinking about that, though, only makes that ache in his chest hurt worse.

What’s haunting him on this particular day, though, is new. Going back to work, searching through those files, really thinking about the big picture… has introduced some new concepts to him.

Mainly, the fact that eight people died in that explosion. Eight people with families, with loved ones, with children. With friends. Eight funerals, eight sets of missed opportunities, eight wasted lives.

And here, Hank is driving home. Perfectly fine. Hank, who had wasted his career and talents, who had spent so long grief-stricken that he had trashed his own body every day with the hopes that his heart would stop beating. Hank, who would have had no problem dying that day. Staying dead.

Eight people who deserved to live on far more than Hank ever had.

It’s a sickening train of thought, but the kind that sticks like glue. That can’t be shaken no matter how hard he tries to push it away, something he is typically very, _very_ good at doing. A skill he has to have as someone in his line of work. So, it really, really sucks that, in this case, he can’t. That he’s forcing himself to think about it, over and over and over.

He checks, quickly, if he is prepared to enter Stasis.

His systems respond with a resounding _no._

That particularly sucks, because there’s nothing more he wants than to waste the next couple hours away to nothing.

 

* * *

 

It’s hazy. Everything is hazy. When Hank gets like this, he frizzles out. Aware enough of his surroundings to navigate them but without any desire to interact. Of course, it’s not so bad anymore. He can’t stop being an Android, so therefore his goddamn computer-chip brain doesn’t really _allow_ him to zone out to a point of being internally alone with his thoughts. A damn shame, that is, because it means he has no excuse not to get out of the car, walk up the front steps, and enter the house.

Connor is doing that thing he does where he keeps on talking while Hank isn’t listening. They both know he’s not paying attention well enough, but that doesn’t stop Connor from using him as a soundboard of thoughts and observations. He chats idly about work, about Mercado, about case files, about typing, about how the house could use a new coat of paint, about how he’ll have to mow the lawn soon and that weeds are starting to grow in the backyard.

The wind is cold and unpleasant at this time of night. Hank is glad once they’re both inside and he gets to close and lock the door behind him.

He doesn’t get much farther than that.

The door itself is solid behind him and somehow Hank doesn’t fight the urge to lean back into it. Of course, it holds his weight without any complaints and he lets his head lull backwards onto the wood. Somehow comfortable, thought it’s likely because Hank can’t really feel if it’s painfully hard anywhere on his back anyway. He supposes he could lay down across the concrete step outside and wouldn’t feel much different after an hour than if he’d been comfortably in bed.

Though he’s not sure he could feel comfortable anywhere right now, softness aside. He feels sick. Not actually sick, but _sick_. He feels like there’s just _too much,_ which makes him feel useless, which makes him feel guilty for not investing himself in the case, which in turn makes him feel even worse because he’s thinking about _the case._

It’s a dizzying mental loop-de-loop. One that Hank is depressingly familiar with, though on different circumstances.

But now is not the time to think of that, either. That would only make things worse.

So he leans in silence against the door.

He breathes, he thinks, he feels sick, he hurts.

He does all this without being able to consume a drop of liquor and it _sucks,_ it sucks _badly._ A juvenile choice of words but elegantly simple.

There is nothing to soften that edge of self-doubt, self-pity, self-hatred. Nothing to blur his mind, break through his thoughts, make things just a little easier to process. Processing, of course, has never been his strong suit. But even then, at least he’d been able to self-medicate himself into placidity. At least enough to knock him out if things got bad enough.

At least.

Now, not so much.

He breathes.

He breathes, and there is a hand on his arm. Soft, gentle, hardly touching him. Designed specifically not to be startling.

And it really _doesn’t_ startle him, actually. Which is surprising, but Hank figures that he lets his guard down when Connor’s with him. Plus, he knows that touch. He knows Connor, familiar and comforting. Like the front door. Solid. Grounding.

He chances it and looks up. Connor is close, but not too close. There’s a two-foot distance between them (two-feet and four-inches, his mind supplies, unhelpfully) that makes Hank feel like his space isn’t so invaded. He blinks. Connor blinks back.

Hank realizes then that Connor had been saying his name from the Livingroom for a decent few seconds. He hadn’t even processed it. Just tuned it out. That, at least, feels human.

“You’re thinking,” Says Connor, quietly. “About what?”

Hank falters. He isn’t prepared to respond.

“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter.”

“Are you aware of how badly you lie?” Connor prods, brow low.

“Yeah. I know.” Hank responds. He figures that he should just say it like it is. He always _has_ been a shit liar, after all.

“You don’t want to tell me. I know it’s something to do with the case, but if that’s all you’d like me to know, then,” A pause. Connor blinks. “I can live with that.”

That sounds so dejected coming from him. It makes something in Hank’s chest twitch in anger at himself.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Hank responds. Not entirely appropriate, maybe. “Connor, you don’t wanna hear any of this shit from me. Not gonna do either of us any good.”

“I disagree. I think you _should_ talk to me. In fact, I think that that’s the only way this’ll have a positive outcome.” He says. It doesn’t strike a good cord with Hank. It sounds artificial. Robotic. Even though it’s everything but.

“That’s funny, you think there’s a positive outcome here,” Hank’s smile is one that Connor knows to be bitter. Saved only for the worst nights. “Think that’s why I kept you around, Con’. Always the shining star of positivity. Could do this, could do that, hope, whatever.”

There’s a lapse.

A few more seconds.

“Wish you’d used some of that hope on somebody who deserved it.”

Another silence. Hank knows there’s a lot more hidden in those words than their surface value. He also knows that he hadn’t really meant to say them. And that Connor is smart enough in his own right to know what their deeper weight means.

At this, Connor looks sad. Hank hates it when Connor looks sad. Plain and simple. More so, he hates when he is the source of that sadness, which he believes to be far, far too often. It hurts him even more than it could possibly hurt Connor, deep in his chest.

It hurts enough that he expects to be left alone. He expects to stand here by the door for at least another hour, wallowing in his self-pity. He expects a lot of things, and in doing so ignores all that’s happened in the past nine years.

He doesn’t get what he expects. What he does get, however, is probably a little better than abandonment.

Connor places his hands, still gentle, still precise, on Hank’s shoulders. He pulls so slightly that Hank has no choice but to follow, rolls forwards on his heels, breaks contact with the door.

He shifts, moving to pull back and away, but Connor closes his arms around him before he gets the chance.

It’s not a tight embrace. It’s not constricting, the way they’d done so before. Instead, it’s delicate, like being held. Hank feels vaguely like a piece of priceless fine china or a Faberge egg, handled so carefully lest it shatter. A depressingly accurate analogy.

“I know you very well, Hank. I know that nothing I say will make you stop thinking.” Connor offers.

“You’re not wrong.” He replies, mumbled, sad.

There’s a thick beat of silence. The kind that Hank wishes would hurry the hell up.

“I’m sorry.” Is Connor’s offer.

Hank wishes so dearly he would stop _saying that._

“Connor?”

“Yes?”

Hank takes a moment to raise his arms from their useless position at his sides, up Connor’s back, together. He lays his palms flat against him, feels the fabric of his shirt under his fingertips. Internal sensors alert him that the surface he is in contact with is five degrees warmer than room temperature.

“Shut up. Don’t do that anymore.”

There’s a muffled little noise behind Hank’s ear. Maybe laughter.

“Can’t help it.”

Bullshit.

“Sorry is hereby banned from this house. _And_ the precinct.” Hank states. His tone is falsely authoritative.

“I’ll delete it from my programmed lexicon first thing tomorrow morning.”

“You can do that?”

“No.”

Hank can practically hear the smile in Connor’s voice.

“Fuck you.” He shoots back. Again, with nothing but warmth.

Connor hums into his shoulder, low and quiet.

Hank feels that sickness in his chest fade, replaced with that unnamed sensation, that shaking, that pleasant little burst of something or another in his core.

He has no name for it besides the feeling of Connor himself.


End file.
